Hunting the Masked
by basicviewing
Summary: The annual Masked Ball has come to Hogwarts again. Partnered with a mysterious masked person, Hermione has the most magical time. She can't get that night out of her head. Draco is having a similar dilemma. He can't stop thinking about his beautiful masked partner. They agree to help each other. But Draco and Hermione learn that love can come from the people you least expect.
1. Chapter 1: The Masked Ball

Chapter one: The Masked Ball

 **Author's note: Hey guys! So this is my first ever fanfiction. I'm really sorry if there is a couple of mistakes, as there is only one of me at the moment whoops. I'm not really sure how to work anything so I've probably got it all wrong, in which case, I'm so sorry! I hope you enjoy this chapter!**

* * *

Hermione holds the crisp white envelope in her hands. She examines it. On the front, in a black, fancy scrawl, is her name: Hermione Granger. She's seen a few of these floating around the school, usually accompanied with excited whispers from 3rd years, but she hadn't yet received her own. Until now. She swiftly tears along the seal and pulls out a letter.

In the same handwriting, it reads

' _Dear Miss Hermione Granger,_

 _You are cordially invited to Hogwart's Annual Masked Ball._

 _Please insure you have a dress/suit and a very unique mask ready in a month's time for you to wear to the ball. You will be paired with a mysterious partner at the doors._

 _Yours faithfully,_

 _Albus Dumbledore_

 _Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry._

 _P.S: I would suggest you do come, as there will be free food!_

Hermione folds up the letter and hurries out the room excitedly to find Ginny. They must buy their dresses and masks as soon as possible!

* * *

 **One Month Later**

Hermione takes one last look at herself in the mirror. She wears a beautiful, pure white dress, that twirls slightly when she moves. It falls in all the right places, and delicately floats around her figure. She wears a matching mask, with small gold patterns along the rim. She smiles at herself in the mirror. This is going to be perfect.

She makes her way through the crowds to the entrance of the Great Hall. She spots a couple of Professors standing at the doorway. She inserts herself in a queue for Professor Flitwick. The students in front of her are being enchanted by a spell and she instantly recognises it as a masking spell, in which the person under the influence of it wouldn't be able to be recognised by anyone.

When she finally makes it to the front of the queue, Professor Flitwich squeaks a quick greeting before casting the spell with his wand around the girl. Hermione feels a slight tingle. Flitwich let's her past and she enters the Great Hall.

The sight that greets her takes her breathe away. It's stunning. The ceiling is dappled with hundreds of stars and floating candles. Beautiful flowers of all varieties climb the tall walls, in a parade of soft colours, that fall into each other. Pale blues, pinks, soft yellows. The polished floor of the Great Hall is covered in students in dresses and suits all dancing to the soft music that plays from nowhere. There is tall banquet tables, spread with the most delicious foods: delicate cakes, small sandwiches, bubbling drinks in glasses.

Suddenly, she is tapped on the shoulder by a Professor and she spins around.

"You have no partner?"

Hermione shakes her head.

"You will pair with the young gentleman then," the professor smiles, pointing. Hermione follows her finger to a tall boy, with light blonde hair. He has a lean, casual figure and he wears a back suit with a small lily in his pocket. Lilies: her favourite flowers. He also wears a white mask, with shades of light blue flowing into it. He smiles at her and she melts. His face is so handsome, and his smile: so genuine and warm. He offers her his hand. She blushes slightly before accepting it. She lets herself be taken away to the dance floor.

He takes a hold of her waist, and his touch is soft. A spark of electricity flows through her. It makes her tingle with excitement. She throws her arm around his neck and they dance.

"Hi," he says. Oh god! His voice is so handsome. Deep but not too deep. Soft, gentle, sweet.

"Hi.."

He smiles. There he goes again, making her feel like jelly.

She stares up into his eyes and, for the first time, she realises how perfect they are. So deep, she seems to drown in a pool of silver. They are so bright and beautiful. Mesmerising. They seem to search hers, full of curiosity.

They slowly sway to the music.

They talk, they dance. They laugh. Everything seems so perfect.

* * *

 **Draco's P/O/V**

Her laugh. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard. Her eyes. A flawless, dark hazel, full of happiness. Her shiny, brown hair falls in the most perfect curls. And the flower in her hair. A lily. My favourite flowers. Talking to her was so comfortable, so natural. I treasure every second I spent gazing down at her gorgeous features. Out of all the girls I could have been paired with, and I had the privilege and the fortune of being put with her.

I don't want this night to end.

* * *

Minutes bled into hours. Before the couple knew it, the professors where rounding everyone up. They held tight on to each other's hand as they made their way out of the Grand Hall.

"I must go," Hermione says regretfully.

"Wait, won't I ever get to know who you are," Draco asks.

"Of course," Hermione whispers softly.

Just then, a huge crowd of students comes stumbling out of the Hall at that moment. They separated the couple. Hermione struggled against the bodies of the crowd but it was no use. Her mysterious masked man was gone.

She regretfully stumbles all the way back to the head dorms (she's Head Girl) and seeing that the Head Boy had not returned yet, she drags herself upstairs. She pulls of her dress and mask and quickly pulls on her bed clothes. She's so tired.

And her last thought is of the handsome, blonde haired, grey eyed, mysterious masked partner before she drifted off to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2: The Morning After

**Author's note: Hello! Sorry for the delays between the two chapters, I had exams. Thank you for all the reviews, it means a lot!**

 **Oh and another thing, the spell that was put on the students in the last chapter (the one that made them not recognise anyone at the ball) has a few side effects and memory loss is one. So that's why in this chapter, Hermione can't really remember what happened last night. And I'm not really sure if I've mentioned this before but Hermione lives in the head dorms with Draco.**

Light flooded into the room from the curtains. Hermione slowly opened her eyes. What time was it? Her head was pounding. She yawned and threw back the bed covers. She realised she was still wearing a dress. A dress..?

The masked ball!

Hermione tried to remember what happened last night. It was all a blur. She sat up and banged her head against the headrest. Why couldn't she remember?! She knew she was put under spell. This must be a side effect: the memory loss. She remembered dancing, laughing. Judging by the fact that whenever she thought about last night she felt a burst of happiness, it was the best night of her life. It was just great she couldn't remember a damn thing!

She jumped out of bed; she quickly got changed. Thank god there was no classes, she was so tired. She brushed her hair and padded downstairs, with a book. As soon as she entered the common room, she realised that someone was sitting in her favourite chair near the fire. She scowled at his blonde hair. Draco Malfoy.

She coughed loudly. Draco turned around. A smirk appeared on his face.

'Granger.'

'Malfoy, that's my chair.' She glowed at him. 'Get out.'

He narrowed his eyes.

'No, I will not get out. I'm tired and this chair is the nicest. Don't worry though, I washed off all the Mudblood germs before I sat down.'

Hermione gritted her teeth and increased her grip on the book she was holding. 'How dare you.'

Suddenly, she noticed he was holding something. The Masked ball invitation. He was fingering it as he scowled at her. 'You went to the maksed ball?' she asked.

'Of course I did. The whole school went. It's a shame i can't remember most of it,' he said.

'A shame?' she echoed. Malfoy rolled his eyes.

'Believe it or not, Granger, I can have a good time sometimes.'

Hermione looked at him. So he couldn't remember anything either...

Suddenly, a thought struck her. Could there be a cure? Something that revived lost memories. She needed to go to the library. Without another word, she left Draco and ran off.

Her fingers traced the dusty spines of the books, and she read each title. One book read ' _Medieval Magic'_ in big, gold letters. Another read _'Melofors Jinx'_ in faded silver. The next book read _'Memory Charms Part One: How to cast them'._ It was close, but not what she was looking for. The next book, however, read ' _Memory Charms Part 2: How to undo them'._ Yes! She pulled the book out from the shelf. It was a thick, grey book, and on the cover there was a moving picture of a wizard, with huge glasses, waving his wand around pointlessly.

She opened up the book and flicked through the heavy pages, glancing quickly at the titles on each page. She stopped at a page that read ' _Memory Charms as side effects'._ She scanned the page. Yes, this is what she wanted. She read the first paragraph.

 _Sometimes charms can have memory loss as a side effect. These are usually some of the hardest types of memories to revive, and will take more than one person to revive all memories. The remedy comes in the form of a potion._

 _The ingredients of this potion are hard to be in possession of and rare._

The rest of the paragraph involved all the ingredients that would be needed. Hermione gasped: some of these are next to impossible to find!

 _However, to finally finish off the potion, as mentioned before, you will need more than one person to be involved. The potion maker (you) and someone else who was with you a lot ,during the period of time you suffered from memory loss, will need to each put in a hair from your head into the potion to fully revive the memory._

As soon as Hermione read this paragraph, she knew that this potion was going to be impossible, not just because of the rare potion ingredients. She would have to find out whoever the mysterious person she danced with last night was. They were the only person she spent time with.

She closed the book and took it out of the library. Hermione made her way back to her dorm, with the heavy book under her arm.

She sighed. She was determined to find out what made last night so special, but judging from the remedy, she might as well kiss all hope of remembering goodbye.


	3. Chapter 3: Help will be given

**Author's Note: Welcome back! I hope you all enjoy Chapter 3. I've changed the paragraph breaker thingys to just a couple of '-'**

 **Another thing: I realise that it's not very clear at what point this whole story takes place, and to be honest, I didn't really know. i'd sorta tried to avoid thinking about it, but i know it might confuse a couple of you. So i have decided that it's taking place after the Battle of Hogwarts. The professors have decided to let those who have missed the seventh year come back and spent one last year at Hogwarts, as 'eighth years'. I have decided that Masked Ball happened to celebrate the victory of Hogwarts against Voldemort. I know this new concept might not match up with the things I have wrote in the last two chapters, but I hope you can forgive me for that and continue the story, now knowing the plot more clearly!**

 **Just a lil' disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in this story. All rights go to the wonderful J k Rowling :)**

That night was restless. Hermione just couldn't sleep. That night felt magical. She wanted to know everything about it. Not only her mysterious partner, but everything: the music, the dancing, whether or not they kissed... She tossed over. The ingredients for the potion were next to impossible. She doubted that the school even had access to things like that. She had never learned anything about a memory potion in all her years at Hogwarts. And to think that the ingredients weren't the hardest part! How on earth was she meant to know who was with her that night?

Instinctively, she reached for the Memory Charm book, only to find it wasn't on her bedside table. She must have left it downstairs. She swung out of bed and quickly got changed. She brushed her bushy hair, and tied it up. Then, she padded downstairs.

Upon her arrival downstairs, she saw two things that angered her. One was Draco Malfoy, sitting again in her favourite chair. The other was the book he was holding. It was none other than the memory charm book. She watched him with fury as he read it intently, his finger tracing the words. Hermione couldn't stand it.

"'Give that back, Malfoy,' she said spitefully.

"'This potion is impossible,' was all he said, his eyes not leaving the page.

"Hermione narrowed her eyes.

'Do you think I don't realise that? How am I supposed to find someone I was with that night. The whole point of the ball was not to recognise anyone.' She shook her head. 'Anyway, i told you to give it back.'

'I could help you.'

Hermione couldn't believe her eyes. Draco Malfoy wanting to help her? Impossible. He wouldn't just help her out of the kindness of his heart. He must want something in return. But what?

'What's in it for you?' she finally asked after a moment of silence.

'You'll help me. If I find out who you were with that night, you'll help me find out who i was with. And i'll get a share of your potion to remember emeverything. /emThat is my deal. We'll help each other.'

It was too good of an opportunity to miss. But then again, it was Draco Malfoy. The very person that had made her life a misery. The Slytherin Prince. The Pureblood. The ex Death Eater...

But she would need the help. He was clever, his help could be valid. It wasn't a huge con to have him share the potion with him. She would never be able to do this all by herself...  
But why him? Why did it have to be Draco Malfoy, of all people?

She knew what do to. She had knew it since the very words left his mouth.

'Ok.'

Draco couldn't believe she had actually agreed.

He really wanted to remember that whole night again. The memory of it all was a blur. It was just laughter, happiness. He hadn't felt like that in years. Ever since the situation with the Battle of Hogwarts, with his father, all the Death eaters and of course Voldemort, he had felt empty. At his lowest. And it didn't help that people were always talking about him being on 'that side', with 'those people'. Only Blaise had stuck by him. But even he didn't understand. Draco didn't have the choice, not really. He couldn't leave his family. His mother...

He wanted to turn over a new leaf. The Draco other people saw wasn't the real him. But if helping Granger with the potion could prove himself to at least one person, then it was a start.


End file.
